Financial Times: Mohamed El-Erian – America’s Jobs Crisis Confirmed – With just 115,000 new jobs in April, the US economy is not creating enough employment opportunities to make a dent in the 12.5m jobless Americans in the labour force, of which a stunning 5.1m are long-term unemployed.

All Star Charts: No One Has a Clue Where Interest Rates are Headed – JP Morgan’s Treasury Bond Client survey shows on paper exactly what I’m hearing out there. 60% of all those surveyed were on the fence and neutral on interest rates, 23% were bullish and just 17% were bearish. In other words, no one has any clue where rates are going!

NY Times: State Bonds in Jeopardy as Tobacco Cash Fades (h/t @munilass) – Dozens of states, counties and cities issued the bonds to receive billions of dollars upfront from the 1998 settlement. But now they are seeing smaller payments than expected from the companies as tobacco sales decline in America.

Market Watch: Pensions swap stocks for bonds, capping rates – Company pension plans, which manage almost $7 trillion in investments, are likely to help keep bond yields low as they shift out of stocks and into fixed income to protect decades of future retiree payouts.